The business models involved in classified ads are based on click-based revenue and sale-based revenue. In a click based revenue, the service provider providing classified ads service earns revenue for every click on an ad from the sponsor of the ad. On the other hand, in a sale-based revenue, the provider earns whenever a user buys the product endorsed by an ad from the classified ads portal. Obviously, returns are higher in the sale based revenue model and in order to reduce risk due to non-sale, both the models are combined and adapted in practice.
When a user clicks on a classified ad that is a part of a classified ads portal, various kinds of promotional information can be provided to the user. These kinds of promotional information are largely provided by the ad sponsors. Typically, the information provided by the sponsors is positively positioned with respect to the products of the sponsors. Hence, there is a bit of hesitation in accepting all of the information provided by the sponsors. In order to reduce the bias and enhancing of the utility value for the users, additional information sources need to be identified. One of the major issues regarding these additional information sources is the handling of spam sources. A way of identifying of these additional sources is to look for product champions within a user community and can be based on the information such as the following: People who own the product, Duration of ownership, Enquiries made, Complaints made, Enquiry duration, User feedback, Reaction to promotional offers, Products of same brand bought, User location, and General information such as likes and dislikes. The behavior of a typical user could be categorized along the following phases: Buy-Phase, Use-Phase, Advertise/Deny-Phase, and is summarized in the table below:
Buy PhaseUse PhaseAdvertise/Deny PhaseBuys productGives feedbackWillingness to participate in voicecampaignBuys multipleEntertains sales callsWillingness to participate in chatproductscampaignBuys whenLong duration usageWillingness to participate in longthere is aduration campaigndiscountBuys atShort duration usageWillingness to participate in shortpremiumduration campaignBuys sameBuys accessoriesPositive participation duringbrandcampaignBuys sameLong durationNegative participation duringbrandcomplaintscampaignBuys sameShort durationConsistency in participationbrandcomplaints
Information similar to the one contained in the above table is used in identifying the potential users who could provide useful information to the other peers.